[1] According to legend, around 475 Saint Genevieve purchased land and built the first chapel on the site, to hold the relics of Denis of Paris, who first established Christianity in France.
The Rue de la Chapelle, where the church is located, has existed since Gallo-Roman times, running from the suburb of Saint-Denis to the center of Paris.
[2] A new church was built in 1204, in the early Gothic style which was strongly influenced by Romanesque architecture.
According to a legend, Joan of Arc spent a night of prayer in the church in 1429, just before her unsuccessful attack on the Burgundians who had occupied Paris.
Beginning in 1930, and to offer thanks for what was viewed as the intervention of Saint Joan in the French victory at the First Battle of the Marne in the First World War, a much larger new church, the Basilica of Sainte-Jeanne-d'Arc, was built next to it.
The next day she led an assault on the city, in an usuccessful attempt to expel the British and their Burgundian allies.